Oh How It Burns
by iioatsu
Summary: "HEADCANON that Engie suffered/suffers from BIID (Body Integrity Identity Disorder) and/or xenomilia ("the oppressive feeling that one or more limbs of one's body do not belong to one's self") and that's what prompted him to cut off his hand and build the Gunslinger."


_Sritch Scratch_. Engie spun around, wrench in hand to face the bleak darkness of his workshop. Sheets of metal and knotted wires lay untouched and unorderly stacked on his shelves and tables, creating a massive mess. He narrowed his eyes to focus through the tinted goggles strapped to his head; his workshop was messy but nothing seemed out of place. Turning back to his work, Engie resumed his meticulous work on repairing his sentry.

 _Scritch Scratch._ The one light that illuminated his cramped workspace flickered leaving him sightless. "Who's there?" Engie flung his wrench out into the dark, half-expecting it to meet a target, half-expecting it to hit nothing at all. His wrench whizzed through the air without colliding into whatever he expected to be there, making his hand burn in protest. "Damn that Scout and his penchant for horror," the Engie murmured as he brought his wrench back to his side, rubbing his pained hand. Engie concluded that the Scouts consistent suggestions for horror films during team movie nights were getting to him; Halloween was approaching and he was feeling far too paranoid. As the lightbulb protested against illuminating the room, Engie began to feel a strange, curious feeling he had been experiencing since the beginning of October. He tried to brush it off, but as the minutes droned on, he glanced down at his now sweltering right arm. Oh how it felt so foreign.

Engie shook his head and let out a throaty chuckle. What an odd connotation, to feel that your arm was… not yours. Like it belonged to another good-for-nothing-Joe. Like how it didn't deserve the blood flowing through your fingertips… or how it burned from the mid-forearm down whenever you flexed the muscles that connected the sinews of your palms to your wrist.

Engie bored his eyes into the dark outline of his hand and the movement in his fingers. The heat that began to grow after swinging his wrench had started to spread from his wrist down to the palm. He tried to ignore the growing feeling of fire under his wrist and moved to blindly find a replacement bulb until a searing pain ripped through his right arm, forcing him to raucously screech and drop his arm to the floor.

He ripped of the thick, rubbery glove from his right hand and examined the species under it with what little flickering light the bulb had to offer. Engie noted his skin was pink and a healthy sheen of sweat coating the surface from the heat of welding trapped under the gloves insulation all day. If this was truly his hand, why did it look so healthy when it felt like his skin felt like it was being boiled? The pain had begun to swelter underneath his skin, spreading like a wild fire and burning the ends towards the ends of his fingers. Engie screamed as he watched his hand writhe in sporadic movements as the throbbing intensified. In the confusion of his hands sudden thrashing, Engie slid down to the floor, back against the worktable he was standing at. Another rip of searing heat struck like lightening through his arm and Engie choked over his own sobs. Amidst the agonizing pain, Engie hazily sorted through all the options he had to stop the feeling of boils blistering across his skin. His mind blanked as a wave of pain surged this time starting from his right and travelling throughout his entire body, forcing Engie to uncontrollably twitch and drool out of the corner of his mouth. Through the sudden blankness that fogged his mind, he found one solution.

He had to take it off. He had to take off hand. It was the perfect answer. This hand was not his hand, he knew this because of the pain he was suffering from it. It wanted to get away; it wanted to separate from his body. It was telling him that it was not his, that it did not belong to him.

Engie wiped away his tearing eyes, smearing snot across his face and began shakily laughing as he weakly gripped the tables edge he was propped against. Engie desperately searched for any sharp object, anything with a serrated edge. The lightbulb had finally begun to blink back to life, just as his eyes landed on the bonesaw Medic had left for repair last week. With a desperate and clumsy motion, Engie swiped the blade from under the piling heap of broken weapons the team left for him to repair and placed it over the source of his pain—on his right hand. With a swift cut, Engie smiled as the pain began to diminish, methodically listening to the low echoes of his bones cutting in the workshop. Blood and chunks of flesh spilled together onto the table, staining the wood. Everything was going to be fine now he chuckled. Darn right it was.

Story orginating from this headcanon:  /Z_u8Tq1voxE0y


End file.
